Lordabdul

It's one of those things where I'm really wondering what's going on behind the scenes. For instance, Well of Daliath says, about the Bad Man: What made the designers think that it's "more correct" to add 10%?

Thanks. So back in RQ2, the "end game that's hard to achieve" was getting to Rune Lord level.... is Hero level the new "end game that's hard to achieve" thing in RQG? I wonder if there are cool mechanics tied to the Mastery/Fate/Infinity/etc. Runes.

What do you mean by these statements? Does it mean that, if they were to continue "ascending" from Heroes to Gods, one of them would end up being the one to embody the Mastery Rune? (the same way, say, Humakt embodies the Death Rune)

I hope you recorded/wrote down everything before you forget it I'm still crossing my fingers so that in a distant future there's a Chaosium anniversary celebration that features a "History of..." book of some kind.

There's a difference between "most members of a cult are lay members" and "most people are lay members of a cult". The first one is cult-centric, the second is population-centric. Many people who are Initiates of a cult are also lay members of a few sub-cults and/or associated cults (Orlanthi Initiates also doing lay-member worship of Barntar and such) so that doubles or triples (or more) the cult attendance and, yes, indeed, in the end, the cult has more lay members than Initiates. My 85% is the "Orlanthi All", as in "most women are initiates of Ernalda". So I took the number of adult women in Clearwine and multiplied that by 0.85. If you consider that only a fraction of the population are Initiates of any cult and that, say, a third of them are just lay members and have zero Rune Points (in RQ terms), then you can multiply the result again by that factor for your own Glorantha. That's what I meant by that very last sentence in my post: even if you go as high as "half the people in Clearwine are only lay members", that would still be enough to pay for 18 full time priestesses in the local Earth temple... just with the town's tithing. If your Glorantha however as an even lower Initiate membership (lower than a third of the population), then you have to start cutting down on a lot more on magic, and make your Glorantha less "magical" and more like real-world Bronze Age... so a lot less magical buffing when going to war, less healing when you come back, less blessed pregnancies and crops, etc. In some ways it's also cool, as it means there's a social strata forming where the privileged get magic that other don't.

Yes exactly -- anybody can stick to a subset of the lore and do what they want with it. Usually when I see people complain, they complain more along the lines of "the new books are not useful to me and I want new books to be what I want!", so it's more of push-back against the editorial choices. A few long running settings have avoided any metaplot. Harn, for instance, has been slowly but steadily expanded upon for 40 years, but it has all been always frozen in time at year 720 TR. They mostly extended the setting geographically, both by going out of the Harn islands and to the rest of Lythia, and in terms of resolution, by famously meticulously describing an increasing amount of villages, keeps, and places of interest inside Harn itself. (I have no strong opinion either way myself...)

My understanding is that traveling in the Spirit World is basically happening along a different "dimension" than the three dimensions of the Middle World. So as you discorporate, you can somehow recognize your immediate surroundings, as they are loosely "correlated with the Middle World" (RQG p371). A discorporate shaman would be able to see the spirit of nearby people and animals, which makes it possible to effectively use this the same way modern soldiers would use infrared to scout a location (but depending on the shaman's POW perception, the other people/animal POW, and the distance between the two... p357). You have to get pretty close (in the Middle World) before discorporating however, and it takes a long time (1 hour) so it's hard to abuse for combat scouting... but with the shaman being aware of both worlds, I allow a shaman character to be vaguely aware of spirits and people nearby -- although of course enemy shamans can do that too. And depending on the place, it could be hard to differentiate between nearby hovering spirits, and actual people, so the shaman might over-estimate. And undead are invisible to this. Once you're in the Spirit World and start traveling, you get further away from the Middle World and any correlation is quickly lost. Spirits that are linked to a Middle World place (a fresh corpse, a haunted place, etc.) are easy to find if you discoporate near that place that they're linked to. Otherwise, finding them from farther away is tricky and requires rolls to navigate the Spirit World correctly. As the shaman travels further outwards in the Spirit World, they might aim for/be sucked in by vortices -- these tend to have a stronger Middle World correlation, so the shamans gets back to a place where they can vaguely make out the mundane features of the place. But most likely there are so many spirits overlapping that it's difficult to sort it all out. So as a result, to answer the OP, I don't think there's any point in a shaman attacking an embodied entity unless that entity is also nearby in the Middle World (but then the body of the shaman is also nearby and potentially vulnerable), or near a spirit vortex for which the shaman knows the corresponding physical location, knows the desired target is physically there, and can recognize that target among all the POW-signatures there (which requires several successful rolls before even attacking, but might work). It might be easier for the shaman to get one of their allied/controlled spirits to attack for them. Either way, the spirit or discorporated shaman needs to become visible in the round prior to the attack. Other than at these specific locations, traveling through the Spirit World and becoming visible would be like coming out of hyperspace randomly in your space ship (so most probably ending up in the middle of nothing, but possibly inside a star or near a black hole). It's dangerous and, therefore, probably super fun.

It would be nice to have this demonstrated in the published RQG adventures and sourcebooks, to set proper expectations with new GMs. Right now, all NPCs, even arguably minor encounters, have complete full write-ups.

Oh I was under the impression that this campaign had already happened and that the recordings were going to be posted on YouTube. Was I mistaken? Or is this a second Chaosium campaign that will be broadcast live? Or is it on Twitch but it's not live? Either way, I'm looking forward to it!

I did that once and it kinda backfired. I made a booklet that was a cut down list of the RQG rulebook cults write-ups (about two thirds of the list, only keeping the core Sartarite ones). The players were overwhelmed, probably because it wasn't an easy-to-parse list with clear, class-like titles. Instead you have a list of made-up deity names and you have to read a paragraph or two for each chapter to figure out exactly what's what. The 2 fairly-new-to-RPG players were quite confused. The long-time-gamers-but-they're-just-here-for-rolling-dice-and-having-fun players shrugged and asked what they should take based on what the party/adventure needs, and what's common in the setting (so they picked Orlanth and Ernalda). The one tactical-munchkin-guy read the whole thing in detail, got excited about all the possibilities, and, surprisingly, settled on a Chalana Arroy character. That's fine, but that's not what the RQG cult write-up says. Did you write your own cult write-ups better suited for player choice? This is actually a very good piece of information to add to that cult. Again, compare that to the one-paragraph cult description in the RQG rulebook. Your short description of the cult seems a lot more attractive to me.

Yeah that's what I meant by Earth temple "donations"... in the Red Cow clan, out of 1500 people total, 330 are carls who farm their own land. That's around 30 persons' worth of wages also going to the various Earth temples in the tula.

I thought we already established that most Orlanthi are initiates in at least one cult? So pretty much everybody is giving money to a temple. Also, don't forget cults do skill teaching. I imagine it is probably the biggest other revenue besides tithing. Spell teaching is probably more uncommon. According to Sartar Companion, there are ~425 female adults in Clearwine... An overwhelming majority of these (85%) would for example tithe to the Ernalda cult. The Earth Temple near Clearwine, the biggest one in Sartar, has between 12 and 20 priestesses... no indication of how many are initiates vs devotees, but I imagine Rune-level priestesses might make between a third and half of that number. But hey, even if all the temple staff needs to be paid for, that's, on average, 16 priestesses. With 425*85%=361 people tithing to this temple at 10% each, that's enough to pay for 36 priestesses full time at the average local living wage. Add the tithing of the Ernaldan initiates of the surrounding lands, the Earth temple "donations", the training income, and so on... I think they're doing pretty well, even if you lower the amount of initiates in the general population in favour of simple lay members (you could probably go as high as half of that 85% of women being lay members, and still come up with positive accounting).

What you describe is now colloquially known as a "metaplot". This kind of stuff happened in a variety of games, so the problems you're mentioning are not new but, really, have no good solution. When a game setting has been ongoing for years, it needs to be expanded. The publisher can expand it spatially (i.e. release books with new regions and areas to explore), or temporally (i.e. release books that "advance" the setting along a given timeline) or something else (like for example by only releasing new adventures, like what 90% of Call of Cthulhu books are about). Vampire: The Masquerade ran into this problem in the late 90s and early 2000s. They expanded in various directions (spatially, with city books, and lore-wise, with the highly successful clanbooks), but with politics being such a big part of the game, they also wanted to make relationships evolve, and so they started a metaplot that unfolded over a few years. Funnily enough, while you say that it was pretty cool to live in real time, some Vampire players were definitely not happy about it, because somehow their game went a different way... for example, maybe in your Traveller game the players actually stopped the war! And now you're kinda stuck, looking at new books that can't be directly applied to your game. Now it might be important to note that the kind of problem you're talking about isn't as bad if only the GM "knows" about the events. Other people note that nobody has any problem playing in 1939 Europe or during Julius Caesar's reign or whatever -- the focus might not even be on the "historical events" anyway because that happens in the background. If it's not in the background, however, then you might be playing in an alternate timeline, which some people find cool too. So really, like I said, there's no unique answer to this... it depends.

I vaguely remember a video of one of the Kraken panels where Jeff said that mapping everything back to a mostly-correct monomyth was the only way he could stay sane while writing and thinking about Glorantha (hopefully I'm remembering this right). But hey, he might have reached some kind of illumination since then... Oh and by the way, thank you for teach me my new words of the day. I frankly don't grok heroquesting enough to be comfortable GMing it, so I just haven't had any in my games yet (which were all one-shots anyway). I understand the general idea, but every time I look in more detail, or pull on some threads, I find that it all falls down in terms of continuity and in-world consistency in a way that things that work in a written story tend to fall down in an interactive game (see also: time travel... which many people here seem to be using heroquesting for, by the way). Saying that I'm looking forward to the heroquesting chapter in the upcoming GM guide would be an understatement. I hope it will be a bit clearer than "it's complicated"

Feel free to continue

This is what 13th Age: Glorantha is for

I think it really depends on how the GM presented the cults and the world to the player. A GM might say: "Humakt is for warriors, Chalana Arroy is for healers, Lankhor Mhy is for intellectuals and researchers, and... errr... Orlanth is kinda for farmers who can fight a bit and most everyday guys, and Ernalda is for everyday ladies, they can, err, bless crops and heal a bit. But hey those are super important because your clan leaders are all Orlanth and Ernalda initiates!"... this won't impress many players, and they will go with the cults that have a clearer gameplay role. This is especially true of the players who more-or-less equate cults with character classes. Depending on the player, it might be more effective to present cults based on their position in society (for instance Ernalda priestesses are more like politicians and leaders than "healers" IMHO), or based on how much magic and skills they get (including how common their temples and holy days are), etc.

Hahaha awesome. To feel more authentic it needs some questions like: Were you or any member of your stead living on Wulfsland property between Dark Season 1924 and Earth Season 1925? If you replied "YES" for the previous question, do you wish to allocate part of your tithing to the Telmori Land Reclamation? If yes, enter the percentage: ____ If you or any member of your stead shelter any Duck between Dark Season 1924 and Earth Season 1925, you may be eligible for a tithe credit under the Beast Folk Accords. Please attach form 892-B Did you make any contributions to political parties in the past tithing period? If so, you may deduct those from your tithable income: Leika Blackspear: _____ Kallyr Starbrow: ____ Argrath White Bull: ____ Other: _____ Did you make any charity contributions in the past tithing period? If so, you may deduct those from your tithable income: Chalana Arroy Cult: ____ Jonstown Library Restoration Society: ____ Dundealos Relocation Support Program: ____ Other: ____

Probably this:

(ignore)

Would it even be possible, since Sartar and everything about/after him happened within Time?

Thanks for all the info. I'm curious about this thing though... I've seen in the past several references to this kind extra restrictions on magic -- lineage, cosmic resonance, Runic affinity, whatever... my understanding is that half the time it's narrative trope, but the other half of the time it could be a rule that could be printed in a book somewhere. For example, are restrictions about high-level Orlanth Rex magic mentioned in the upcoming Cults book? Could other narrative trope advice be included in the upcoming GM guide? Etc...

Yes, exactly, that's my point: Sing is useful mechanically. So is Shield. But a whole bunch of other things fill the same mechanical usage: you can also augment with a Rune, a Passion, or some other skill. And all those things are more interesting to spend points on than Sing. Same situation as with Shield. I'm pretty sure that if we were to make a priority list of things people typically use to augment their attacks, you would have Orate and Intimidation before Sing, because those 2 are more generally useful than Sing. And then they'd use Runes/Passions which typically have far bigger scores (although you can't really spend points in those). So you end up with a cultural trope (barbarians singing and banging their weapons before charging) that doesn't get reflected in the game because there's not enough mechanical incentive to do so compared to other better mechanical incentives. Similar to how players who go where the mechanics leads them will prefer to parry instead of using a shield. Of course, narratively speaking, you could say that an Orate or Passion augment is, in fact, a song of some kind. So you can still kind of get the cultural trope in your games without mechanics. Which is why I was saying my point was both far fetched, but also illustrating that you don't necessarily need mechanics per se... Anyway, I think we have way enough suggested shield-related house rules, so I'm hoping the OP will now come back with feedback on which rules work well.

Fair enough. But, to make a slightly far fetched point: the cultural bonus to shield for, say, Sartar, is the same as the cultural bonus to Sing. It's up to the GM to narratively make singing relevant, because there are no mechanics that make singing "interesting" otherwise... unless someone starts a thread to add singing mechanics to the game (and now that I'm writing it, I would actually love that ) (but yes, I see where you're coming from... I was just giving a friendly warning about unintentionally making shields unbalanced the other way) Anyway... I don't remember if someone already pointed out that some games also only allow a single parry per round, with the cumulative penalty only working for dodge. Given how low dodge typically is, that's usually another incentive to get a shield.

It's not so daft: those kid shows have become quite good at having action but not combat. A GM can learn from these. Another example is Transformers: Rescue Bots.